


Ordinary

by conceptofzero



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-14
Updated: 2015-01-14
Packaged: 2018-03-07 13:22:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3174804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/conceptofzero/pseuds/conceptofzero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ordinary is a relative term when you live in a mansion in the desert with a dozen or more strange puppety men.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ordinary

**Author's Note:**

  * For [HorribleThing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HorribleThing/gifts).



Snowman wakes promptly when she hears the explosion, lifting her head from the pillow and reaching for her sidearm. Soon as her fingers curl around the handle, she hears shouting from downstairs. That’s Crowbar yelling, and though he’s muffled by the floors, she relaxes the moment she hears the furious but familiar tone. Seems like someone decided that the best part of waking up is ensuring every single last person in a 100 meter radius is forced to wake up too.

While Crowbar continues to yell, she goes about her usual morning routine on her off-days. She puts on a record, draws a bath and soaks in the water while reading a political thriller. It’s one of the better ones she’s read in the past few months. She occasionally mouths along with the author’s Black Queen dialogue and finds it satisfyingly accurate. The music serves to cover the dull background din from the rest of the Mansion that predictably swells higher and higher as others drag themselves out of bed. 

Once she’s finished soaking, she goes through her beauty routine. Her shell is polished, buffed and smoothed here and there where Slick’s latest knife wounds have left gashes in her shell that need caring for. Only once she shines does she bother to pursue her closet for something to wear. Most of her outfits are work clothes, sensible coats and dark clothes to go underneath, perfect for soaking up her blue blood and to keep her looking like a pen’s burst in her pocket. She has nowhere to go today and no plans to go anywhere, so she picks from the other side of her closet, where colours other than green sometimes lurk. From among cocktail dresses and ball gowns and some other designs (some by Stitch, some by tailors in the City proper), she chooses a sheath dress, just the sort of sensible thing to wear around the Mansion on a day like today. 

The moment she leaves her room, Itchy’s by her side. He’s one of the few who seems to feel safe approaching her, likely because his speed means it’s difficult for her to catch him. Not that she often feels compelled to chase him down. Itchy is devoted to being annoying, but so long as you give him no reaction, he’ll move on to one of the Mansion’s many easier targets. 

Itchy asks if she’s going to eat breakfast with them. A glance at one of the nearby clocks (and there are always clocks nearby in this place) tells her that it’s a perfectly appropriate time to eat. She may, she tells him, walking at a brisk pace. He follows at a light jog, telling her that she really should eat breakfast with them, right now, immediately. 

So the explosion must have taken place in the kitchen. She descends the stairs and on the bottom level, she smells smoke and burnt food-stuffs. Smoke is still looming in the foyer and she spots a cluster of Felt members around the kitchen. Snowman decides not to join them, and that she doesn’t particularly want this dress to smell of smoke. She tells Itchy she’ll be out on the patio until they fix things, and she promptly leaves. 

Outside, the sun shines and the desert is as hot as ever. She walks on the paving stones that circle the perimeter of the Felt Mansion, the green paint chipped away from time and from the constantly blowing sand. Here and there, she steps over piles that accumulated in the night.

The patio’s been sanded in, but she finds that at least one table is intact. Snowman raises the umbrella and takes a seat. Part of the tennis courts is covered in sand as well, and if she looked into the empty pool out back, she knows she would find it full of tiny dunes. Neither see much use and she doubts either will be cleaned up before the next storm comes along. One day, maybe she’ll attempt to get them to clean the courts and see if any of them know how to play tennis. She’s always had a wicked serve. 

Behind her, the windows to the kitchen are finally opened and aired out with fans. She waits outside until she smells something that isn’t burning, and only then once she hears Crowbar call everyone to eat does she head inside. She teleports this time, not wanting to arrive too late. 

Breakfast is as it always is, which is to say it’s loud, chaotic and a fight over the most popular food types. They move out of her way as she fills her plate though, so she gets everything she wants. The fruit is fresh, the eggs are a little runny, and it appears that the explosion from earlier must have decimated the coffee pot because there is absolutely none to be had. She settles for juice and for listening to Itchy complain loud and long about this injustice. 

Once fed, the members disperse to cause trouble in the mansion. Snowman finds herself heading back outside to confirm for herself that the pool is a mess. It is. Shame. She could enjoy a dip today. Of course, someone would have to move the sand, clean and then fill the pool and by that point, she’s better off just taking another private bath. Too bad she isn’t a Queen anymore. It would be easy to order to have this work done for her then. 

There’s the sound of shattering glass, and when she turns around, she finds that Eggs has put his head through the window. He seems dazed but he smiles when he sees her, remembering a moment later that he’s afraid of her. The smile drops and he pulls his head back through the broken window, ignoring the way Stitch shouts at him to stop. Snowman looks at the blood on the glass and ground and decides that what she really wants right now is a cigarette. 

The smoking room doesn’t see much use by anyone other than her. It’s a nice, quiet place to go and have a cigarette. Snowman seats herself on a couch and lights up a cigarette. It’s the perfect post-meal treat. With nothing much else to do today, she relaxes and listens to the ambient sounds rattling through the mansion. There’s the low drone of Doze as he slowly makes his way down the hall, talking to himself mostly when people get tired of waiting for him, and there’s the loud HA HA! from Quarters somewhere two floors down, amused by some sort of physical suffering someone is going through. 

She finishes one smoke and has another, and when she’s nearly finished that one, she finds herself drawn to the sound of music from above. It sounds like it’s coming from the ballroom, though under the soundtrack, she hears the loud click and clack of something, and occasionally hooting and screeching from whoever’s up there. Her curiosity gets the better of her and she teleports upstairs to investigate. 

This proves to be a somewhat dangerous choice as she appears a few inches away from a golf ball flying through the air at dangerous speeds. It smashes into the wall of the ballroom and ricochets to the left, finally coming to a spot at it smashes into Die, who shrieks and falls to the floor, arms and legs flailing madly about.

Fin calls out an apology, looking quite sure that he’s about to be eviscerated. While she’s unimpressed, she hasn’t been hit, and she settles for giving him a cold look. Snowman looks over the gathered men and at Die, still writing on the floor, and asks exactly what the game is. They explain to her that they’re hitting golf balls against the far wall and then everyone else is dodging them when they come back. Die is particularly terrible at this. Fin offers her his club and suggests she try. She might like it, he says, and his eyes wander to Die as if to suggest that they are all rather deliberately hitting Die. 

Snowman takes the club. She takes a few test drives before she really puts her power behind it. The golf ball makes a very satisfying clonking sound as it smacks into the wall and rebounds. It hits the wall behind them and keeps going, smacking Trace in the back. He goes down hard and arches his back as he curses up a blue streak. Clover titters and eggs her on to try again. Though she finds herself enjoying this somewhat, she hands the club over to Trace once he’s off the floor, suggesting that perhaps this game is more enjoyable for them than her. Trace curses a little more, but doesn’t stop her when she takes her leave.

She retires to her room, reading more of her novel and listening to another record. As the tension builds in her novel, she loses herself to the court politics, feeling delighted by it all. In the book, ‘she’ uncovers the plot against her and in a viciously satisfying monologue that she mouths along to, the Black Queen strips the conspirators of their titles and has them imprisoned. There’s still a few chapters left to go and she peeks ahead to see if they are plot, or perhaps the sort of fraught smut that tends to go hand in hand with these books. Her scanning finds a description of her heaving bosom and she sighs a little. What a shame. Bad pornography at the end of an otherwise good novel is terribly disappointing. 

Snowman still reads it of course. Beggars mustn’t be choosers, and on Alternia, it’s this or else be regulated to the complicated and altogether dull Troll romances. 

When she finishes her book, she decides to go for a walk before starting another or losing herself in some other activity. This is how she finds Crowbar, berating the group of golfers from earlier. It’s very easy to tell the moment he notices her, as he forgets for a moment that he’s reprimanding them and gets somewhat red. He acknowledges her presence, and in that moment, Clover seizes an opportunity to rat on her, letting him know he should dress her down as well for participating with them. Crowbar looks to her for conformation and she acknowledges that yes, she hit a few golf balls as well. 

The look on his face makes it clear that he has now entered his worst nightmare. She takes pity on him (mostly because she has no interest in the others roping her into future activities just so they can get away with it) and agrees that she had acted improperly, requesting that they be given a group punishment.

And with a stroke of luck, she has just the thing. Ignoring the way Crowbar goes even redder at the term punishment (and really now, she was the one who just finished reading some tawdry smut and she still managed to remain calm), she suggests they clean out the pool. It won’t be ready to use today of course, but tomorrow? He agrees with it, and adds that they’ll be expected to clean the tennis courts as well. The other men glower somewhat at Snowman before remembering to fear her, and they turn their dirty looks towards Crowbar. 

Of course, she won’t be doing any actual heavy labour. Snowman takes her rightful position as supervisor and gathers up the tools to be used. No one challenges her on this, though she occasionally hears grumblings. She drags her chair and umbrella close to the pool and as they clean the pool out and occasionally throw handfuls of sand at one another, she lies in the shade and starts a new book. 

What a good, if somewhat boring day. Perhaps tomorrow, there will be some real excitement. And if not, she’ll enjoy the change to dip her feet in the water and wear a swimsuit.


End file.
